Student scores on reading assessments have
improved dramatically at one of the first Mesa
elementary schools to implement the federally
funded Reading First program.

Less than 25 percent of 148 first-graders met
the benchmark on a national reading test at
Lowell Elementary School last year, and nearly
half the students needed intensive instruction.
This year, about half the students met the
benchmark as second-graders.

Administrators and teachers in the state's
largest school district credit much of the
improvement to Reading First.

The program provides federal dollars for
schools with low-income students who have low
test scores and allows teachers to give young
elementary school students 90 minutes of
intensive reading instruction each day. Staff
members can increase that instruction time by an
additional hour for those students who need it
most.

That might sound like a lot of time to spend on
one subject - it's nearly half the school day -
but teachers like Patty Henry say the commitment
is worth it. The 19-year Lowell veteran can see
the improvement in her second-grade class.

"It's what these kids at this type of school
need because the reading they get is here,"
Henry said.

More than 90 percent of Lowell's students are
Hispanic, and many have parents who don't speak
English, which makes reading at home difficult,
Henry said.

"When it has to happen at school, we need to put
more time into it," she said.

That time has paid off, according to student
performance on the Dynamic Indicators of Basic
Early Literacy Skills test. It's still a work in
progress, school reading coach Renee Parker
stressed, but the program is moving students in
the right direction to succeed on yearly
assessments and ultimately on the AIMS test.

Parker's salary, along with those of five other
reading coaches in the Mesa Public Schools, is
funded through the nearly $3.25 million the
district received as part of a three-year grant.
Lowell is one of 64 Valley schools
participating. Each of the six Reading First
schools in Mesa received more than $500,000 to
hire staff, said Kathy Savage, the district's
basic skills coordinator. Though the grant
funding disappears after the 2005-06 school
year, administrators are confident those
positions could be funded at the district or
state level.

That's good news for parents like Cynthia
Belmontes, who has a daughter in fifth grade and
a son in second grade at Lowell.

"Before this program, they really didn't want to
read a lot of books at home," she said. "But now
that everybody's doing it, they're much more
into books."